


Mr. Zahhak, You've Been a Bad Man

by matrixlog



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Humanstuck, M/M, Murder, murderstuck, some blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-20
Updated: 2013-08-20
Packaged: 2017-12-24 03:22:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/934713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixlog/pseuds/matrixlog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dirk and Jake move into a murder house where the body of a fresh victim lies in the basement. They resolve to hide the crime even though it wasn't theirs to begin with. Too soon after this, the killer returns, hungry for blood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dirk slammed the remainder of his beer back and hopped off the grimy counter. Jake glanced up as his boots hit the ground. The taller, more muscular boy came closer to him and knelt, a gloved hand resting on his shoulder.

“We’ve gotta bury it,” Dirk whispered, picking up another beer from the 12-pack next to Jake.

“Why don’t we just call the police?” Jake asked, pulling the beer – his third – away from his lips. “Dirk, we can’t – we can’t hide a dead body. If anyone finds it, they’ll think we killed her.”

“We don’t even know the girl, and she was here when we got here,” Dirk replied, reaching momentarily for the beer before giving up and plopping down next to the tanned boy.

“Yeah, fresh,” Jake replied. “Jiminy crickets, Dirk, what if whoever killed her – what if they come back? What if this is their killing space? Why the hell did I agree to buy this shithole with you? Goddammit.”

Dirk leaned over, cupping his cheek, pressed his lips against his. Jake loosened around his touch, relaxed into his shoulder and when they pulled apart, he sighed.

“I’m just not comfortable with this, Dirk.” He fiddled with his socks, pulling them up, twisting the top hem.

“Hey,” Dirk said. He twisted around onto his knees, sitting in front of Jake. “Man, we’re gonna be al-fucking-right, okay? Now shut up, let’s get some pizza and bury the chick.”

***

Jake went out to purchase the shovels and a box of large garbage bags. But, Jesus, that felt so suspicious, and as he perused the aisles of Home Depot for far too long. Before long, his phone was ringing, and the boy dug in his pockets, hand colliding with change and stray pieces of lint before he found his phone. Clutching it, he extracted it and answered Dirk.

“Hey, man, where are you?” No formalities, no “hey, what’s up?” “Jake, what’s taking so long? The pizza’s getting cold and I don’t feel like waiting.”

“Sorry, I just-”

“What’s wrong?”

“I feel so blasted suspicious is all.”

Dirk chuckled.

“Man, make it seem like a gardening supply excursion, pick up some sick seeds and fertilizer and what the hell? Let’s actually plant a garden over where we’re going to bury the bo-”

“Don’t say it,” Jake hissed into his phone loud enough for a lady looking at curtains to give him a funny glance. “I mean – it’s – ugh.”

“Yeah, I know, man,” said Dirk. “It’s twisted, but, hey, there’s nothing we can do about it, so I figure we accept it, and just go for it. Take care of this little problem.”

“Dirk!” The lady glared at him again and Jake scurried to a new aisle, away from what felt like all too knowing eyes. “Stop being so casual!”

He was in the gardening section now and he stopped, pretending to investigate the birdhouses. Eventually he just grabbed one that was already made and threw it into his shopping cart.

“Hey, calm down, Jake.” Accompanying his words was the pop-hiss of opening a soda can. “Want me to suck you off when you get home?”

“Dirk.” His face flushed red, but the idea wasn’t all unpleasant.

Dirk was laughing, the sound rich and comforting and normal.

“Oh, well, I’ll put the pizza in the oven to stay warm, and text me when you’re on your way home just so I know, alright?” he said.

“Okay, will do.”

Jake hung up, and the phone dropped into his pocket once again. He found a few bags of fertilizer and seeds, some trays of small flowers before he wandered outside and through the outdoor garden section. He wasn’t really paying attention, more of seeing that poor girl, with her throat slit, the blood dried –

The bile rose in his throat and Jake stopped short, hand ramming his lips shut. He swallowed the puke again, fought its return and tried to breathe. Sweat dripped down his forehead, ran into his eyes. Jake sucked in a breath that sounded like a backwards scream, high pitched and panicked.

“Calm right down, Jake,” he whispered to himself, eyes planted on the mulch in front of him.

He pulled in a deep breath, licked his lips and his fingers dug into the flesh on the bridge of his nose, leaving half-moon circles from his nails. Jake lifted his head, caught the sight of small tree shaking in its roots in the light breeze that evening.

That tree was the answer.


	2. Chapter 2

“Right, so, once the moon comes out, I vote we make post haste in transporting the body and burying it, and then planting the tree.”

“Seems like a decent idea,” Dirk agreed, slugging back another beer.

“And for Christ’s sake would you stop drinking?” Jake cried, his face getting red.

“Sorry, dude,” Dirk replied and put the beer on the ground, next to his foot.

Jake sighed.

“Hey,” Dirk said and cupped his cheek. “This whole thing is really not floating well with you, is it?”

Jake shook his head, bit his lip. His eyes were fixated on a floorboard by the stack of records Dirk had brought with them while they waited on the majority of their furniture to be brought in by the moving company.

“This murder business doesn’t jive quite right with me, Dirk,” he confessed and licked his lips. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to have to bury a girl that doesn’t look more than seven.”

“I know that, and it’s pretty sick, and not in the normal context I use for that word, but I still think it’s better to bury her,” said Dirk. He paused and then added quietly, “I do have that outstanding theft warrant and I don’t think the amount of guns you keep would assist us at all.”

Jake swallowed and glanced up at Dirk.

“I hate this blasted house,” he murmured. “I want out of here.”

“I know.” Dirk spoke softly and came around the fold out table. He knelt next to Jake and held his hands. “And I’ll do what I can to get us out., but we just sank all our money into it, and I don’t know how we’re going to get out necessarily.”

Jake leaned down, pressing his forehead to Dirk’s.

“We’ll get through it, Jake.”


	3. Chapter 3

At 10:56, when the last neighbor shut their lights off, the boys descended into the basement, turning on every light as they went. Even though they did not want to be caught – hell, they were praying with every ounce of their being to not be – they weren’t going down there without being able to see everything that could be seen.

Dirk went first, and Jake trailed a few steps behind, holding a large garbage bag. Body bag his brain would chant, and giggle when he flinched against it. The stairs were old and bloodstained. With nearly each step, they creaked, sighed, under their weight. How did anyone murder little girls down here when the stairs screamed in protest?

Jake opened his mouth to say something but quickly shut it, seeing Dirk’s set shoulders, squared jaw as he hit the base of the staircase and turned to enter into the open part of the cellar. Jake stepped off only three footfalls later and turned his face to Dirk and the body.

The girl was still there, the dried puddle of blood still fanning around her. Her blue cat hat was still just barely off her head, as if it had been knocked off, and her over-sized green jacket was in a heap next to the body. A black t-shirt with a Leo sign in green hung off her torso.

“Poor thing,” Jake whispered.

Dirk glanced back at Jake. All the color had drained from his face, and sweat ringed the collar of his t-shirt.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s do this.”

Jake finally moved over, next to Dirk, and shook out the garbage bag. Dirk lifted the girl and with it came an awful peeling, sticky sound. The pizza and soda rose against Jake’s throat and he dropped the bag, running to the corner to empty his stomach of the night’s meal.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and nearly jumped out of his skin, but only found Dirk, patting his back. A bead of perspiration ran down the back of his neck and sent a wave of child across his body.

“Let’s do this.” Jake repeated Dirk’s earlier words with more confidence than he had spoken with since they signed the contract to move in three weeks ago in Mr. Zahhak’s office.  
Finally, the boys lifted up the girl’s body, fighting the stench, the vile reek, and dumped it into the improvised body bag before carrying it up the screaming stairs, Dirk kicking the door shut. The boys placed it in a coat closet while they grabbed the two shovels Jake had purchased earlier and left the house through the backdoor.

The brisk night air had a calming effect on both of them, but soon chilled them deeply from the sweat caused by their growing anxiety. But the boys began to dig.

They dug through the first foot no problem. The second, they began to feel watched, but they remained steady. The shovels penetrated the dirt, and the dirt hit the same pile time after time, but by the third foot, Jake’s heart was hammering. He wouldn’t dare say anything, and he knew Dirk wouldn’t either.

The fourth foot became the problem.

There were other bodies in that grave, other dead girls. One skeleton had a blue and green skirt wrapped around her small legs and another that was still decaying, had what looked like a red play suit and red wings on her shoulders.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

“Go get the girl.”

“What?” Jake almost forgot to keep his voice low.

“Get the damn girl, Jake,” Dirk hissed, his eyes narrowing. “We’re almost done. Just do it.”

Jake nodded and scrambled inside to grab the bag. Inside, he could have sworn he’d seen a shadow flicker by the basement door, and had they left that door open? He couldn’t remember now. Jake shook his head, sucked in a breath, his lungs expanding against his ribcage. His footsteps echoed as he crossed the hardwood floor to pull the bag from within the closet.

He dragged the girl’s body out of the house and to Dirk who had widened the hole enough to successfully add the girl with the cat hat to the mix. Shortly after dinner, Dirk had also brought out the tree they would use to cover the hole.

Dirk moved around and picked up the girl with Jake and they moved around to the sides of the grave.

“One, two, three.”

And they dropped her.


	4. Chapter 4

Dirk crawled into bed with Jake later that night, throwing his side of the blanket back and then sliding onto the air mattress. Jake had insisted that they sleep with the light on, and he had not objected in the slightest. 

“I hate this house.”

“So you’ve said,” Dirk replied, pulling his pillow closer to Jake’s, lying down, his arm across the other’s waist.

“I’m really uncomfortable with what just happened,” he said.

“You’re not alone,” Dirk replied.

Dirk was surprised when Jake fell asleep so soundlessly, so quickly. He laid there, eventually rolled over, but sleep eluded him, sat and watched and laughed as he turned over and over and couldn’t keep his eyes shut.

So he sat up, thought he heard a board creak. But the wind had been blowing all day, of course, and so something probably would creak…right? Dirk sat still though, as the creaking continued, and got up a moment later, trying not to disturb his partner – but since he’d slept through Dirk’s tossing, he would stay asleep as he got up.

Dirk crept towards the door, his body shaking, betraying him, as he went. Dirk was the one unperturbed by all they’d done that day, why was he freaking out because of some creaky boards? And he wasn’t going to find anything, he knew that. Nothing was there, nothing at all.

And so Dirk pulled the door open.

“Shit!” he screamed, as Mr. Zahhak stepped forward, all in black, a length of rope in hand as well as a gun.

“Ah, Dirk,” he soothed. “Oh, and Mr. English, too.”

Jake was awake at this point, his heart racing in his chest.

“So it seems you’ve both found out about my little secret. Obviously, you would. I left that little present there just for you. You see, I need to spice up my killing life, and I figured adding two adults to it would make it much spicier, if you catch my drift. Oh, and if it makes you feel better, I’ve never raped the girls.”

“You?” Jake yelped. “You were so nice!”

“Not everyone is as they seem,” Mr. Zahhak said. “And do call me Equius. I’m not working, I don’t feel the need to be so formal. Even with people I’m about to kill.”

“W-w-wait, wait, wait!” Dirk said. “We didn’t even tell anyone about-about the girl we found. We didn’t call the cops. I mean, we just buried her. And covered the grave with a tree, too!”

“Yes, but now, I have to dig another, you see,” Equius responded. “You’re both exceptional boys really. Not calling the police immediately? That really takes something special. Or stupid. I’m not sure which.”

“C’mon, let’s work something out,” Jake said as Equius continued to move closer to Dirk. Why had he agreed to not keep any guns in the bedroom? “We can bury bodies for you.”

“Unfortunately,” said Equius, raising the gun, aiming at Dirk. “I work solely alone.”

The tall man ripped himself to the side and pulled the trigger, sending the bullet straight into Jake’s skull, bone shattering as the surprised look still locked on his face was the last thing Dirk would see, blood dripping from the hole  
“No!” Dirk screamed, and something shattered inside his chest. “No!”

He tried propelling himself forward, but the rope was around his neck and pulling tight. The chord scraped apart the skin, and the air was being restricted from his lungs. Dirk fought, kicking and clawing, jerking his arms back to jab his elbows towards Equius.

He tried to get words out, panicking, wasting oxygen, but he wasn’t thinking, and oh my, God, Jake.

And then Dirk was crying, and he wasn’t fighting, and he still couldn’t breathe, and was Equius laughing?

***

Equius Zahhak stepped out of his car. He had removed every ounce of evidence from the house, wiped it all down with bleach and after the stench of bleach had settled, seemed to go, he hired the Nitram cleaners – those immigrants always worked cheap – and had them go back over the entire house. And then again, he replaced the wood. Just as before he began using the house as his kill ground.

With the boys buried in an unmarked, shallow, grave near the valley a few miles away, the house was empty again. He wouldn’t kill the next occupants. No. That would be suspicious, and he’d been avoiding suspicion for so long, why would he do it again? After the police got what they wanted, figured they’d all just ran off, Equius was able to readjust the house for his desires and the next family or person to live inside.

He went around to the back of the car and popped open the truck, pulling out the For Sale sign in the back. He grinned, thinking of little Kanaya Maryam living three blocks over.

Maybe she could go down next.


End file.
